Slashdot videos: Now with more Slashdot!

View

Discuss

Share

We've improved Slashdot's video section; now you can view our video interviews, product close-ups and site visits with all the usual Slashdot options to comment, share, etc. No more walled garden! It's a work in progress -- we hope you'll check it out (Learn more about the recent updates).

Darwin never suggested "survival of the fittest". What does this even mean? 'Fittest' must mean ' most fit in a certain environment', but how is that measured? 'Most fit' must can only be meaured as the ones 'that survive'. So the statement can only mean "survival of the survivers" which is a trivial obsurdity.

Intels continued tick-tock development is at this time only a play to the gallery. The 14nm core actually only has 1 component per 321 '14nm tiles'. This is 1% the density from 10 years ago. The performance has not improved very much over the last generations either.Maybe it is time for Intel to use their enormous resources to go in a new direction and become competitive in a new world. Otherwise they will tick-tock themselves into fighting a sub 10nm battle with no enemies except Moore's law.

This selection is only within existing genetic variation. Evolution requires mutation as well. As commented elsewhere, if you sterilize everyone with black hear, everyone will be blond in a generation. That is not evolution.

I respectfully disagree on all your points- Small pixels reduce sensitivity, not dynamic rage, but the whole point with the isocell sensor is to increase sensitivity in a small pixel. Because photons are discrete, your dynamic range can be no better than 10*log(photon count/pixel). To get 10 bit dynamic range you need 10e3 photons/pixel.- The megapixel game is not meaningless. I use a large printer, and with a 25Mpix sensor, the result is a lot better than with a 10Mpix sensor. The print actually has a resolution of 12 000 Mpix!

The quantum efficiency, QE, of most backlit sensors ranging from the best DSLR to the Samsung is all around 10%. (Human eye and astronomical cameras can be up to 100% i.e. detect single photon.)

10% QE is about 5 picoLumens per pixel sensitivity, and here is where the sensitivity comes in. 1 lux= 1 EV = 1 lumens/m2 = a bit more than bright moonlight. Assume you have an f1 lens. now you will need 5 nanoLumens/pix for 10bit DR.

A 7mm lens will give you 3.8E15 photons/s, so each of the 16Mpix will get 2.38E8 photons, or 2.38E7 LSB. This should equal 24bit dynamic range. This is with a lot of generous assumptions like an f1 lens, no statistical noise, no thermal noise etc, but still enough photons to give good dynamic range in the darker parts of a photo.

Given all the information, here is the best explanation of what happened:1. The airplane hits meteorite or some other foreign object causing immediate decompression and damage in the cockpit.2. The pilots have a few minutes to dive down to thicker atmosphere before the die due to lack of oxygen.3. They dive the airplane down to be able to breathe.4. At the same time, able to set the autopilot to fly back to land at a low altitude.5. They both expire, and the airplane continues to fly on autopilot.6. As they fly the wrong way, passengers and crew try to get into the cockpit to take over and land the plane.7. Nobody can break into the cockpit, and after 7 hours the fuel is used up, and the plane dives into the drink.

As a former military police officer and current concealed weapons licensee, I agree with much of this but dont shoot to kill. Shoot to stop the threat. Never fire a warning shot. Dont shoot in the leg to just injure.

I am actually pretty cheap. Good pilots headsets are expensive, but try a pair of regular digital active noise cancellation headsets next time you save $$$ by flying in the back of the cabin. Just putting them on even with no signal in removes all the ambient noise. The difference is heavenly, and if you try it once, you will never go back. If you do not understand what active noise cancellation read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_noise_control,

You can get cheap hearing aids for next to nothing. A simple amplifier. If your hearing is damaged to a varying degree at different frequencies, and you want to be able to hear conversations, a better device will be custom made to remap the relevant audio to the right frequencies. This requires customization to each user and advanced digital signal processing. To select human voice, and filter away unwanted noise is also a demanding DSP task.

A good headset for music easily costs $500, and my sennheiser pilot headset costs easily $1000. and that is not customized to me.